Costa Concordia Cruise Ship Disaster 2nd Anniversary Marked By Survivor Memorial [PHOTOS]

Monday, Jan. 13 marks the second anniversary of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster, which left 32 dead and the Costa Concordia partially submerged after running aground at Isola del Giglio, an island off the coast of Tuscany, Italy.

After the disaster occurred in 2012, the Costa Concordia was left partially submerged for over a year. In the fall of 2013, the ship was salvaged by parbuckling, or uprighting, the ship by rotating it slowly. The parbuckling operation was unprecedented in its scale, making it one of the most ambitious projects conducted in maritime history.

The Costa Concordia’s captain, Francesco Schettino, is currently on trial for multiple charges of alleged manslaughter, according to the Miami Herald.

With the Costa Concordia uprighted, the salvage team is now tasked with lifting the wreckage off the seabed so it can be towed away and scrapped sometime in June 2014.

Currently, several Italian ports are bidding for possession of the wreck, including the ports of Genoa, Palermo and Civitavecchia, according to the Associated Press. Other countries such as France, Turkey, the U.K. and China are also bidding on the wreck.

Additional air tanks will be attached to the Costa Concordia before it is eventually hauled off to the destination port that makes the winning bid.

Since the Costa Concordia disaster, which marred the image of Costa Cruises, a subsidiary of the Carnival Corporation (NYSE:CCL, NYSE:CUK) and the cruise industry as a whole, steps have been taken to make cruising safer for vacation travelers.

The Cruise Lines International Association adopted a “Passenger Bill of Rights” back in May 2013, and the association adopted several voluntary safety recommendations after the Costa Concordia disaster.

Take a look back at the uprighted Costa Concordia in photos below.